Busy week

I just wanted to leave a quick note. I rode yesterday at the camp on the short loop (I forgot my riding shoes!!!). I didn't want to just go home, so at least I did something, right? Had a blast at Road America with the car, came in first place for the third year in a row with the robot, and going to WIR this Friday and Saturday with the electric car. Sorry I couldn't make it out to help at the trails.

My God, I think we got it

Today was the last day we had to get the car prepared for Road America this coming Sunday and Monday. Everything got buttoned up, the body installed and a larger sproket in place after our not so stellar performance on Wednesdays test run. so we brough her out to our private test track and began running, looking good along the way. Eventually our driver stops at the other end of the track and starts to get out (not good!!!!). We added an internal hub tranny to the mix this year and the cable housing had wrapped a good 4 or 5 times around the axle. So we disaembled the wheel to see if we could salvage it (no such luck).

I went back to the weld shop and made a call to Jeff at JB. I had almost no hopes of finding the fairly rair hub tranny. It just so happened Jeff had bought a spare complete wheel and shifter years back. Oh my god this is amazing I thought, 5:30 Friday night and within an hour we had a brand new wheel for a hell of a deal. So we installe it in about an hour and took it out for some very satifying laps. All I can say is thanks to Jeff and JB Cycle. Wothout the wheel our months of work would have been down the drain for our premeir race.
Tomorrow I have a robot competition to attend all day so you all have fun with whatever type of riding you end up doing.

Pace Line

I had a very nice weekend for the most part. My machine was successfully accepted by the customer at work and I managed to get out a little early on Friday. Saturday was one of the busier days I've had recently. Summer is getting slowly closer and my schedule like most of yours is getting busy.

Saturdays ride started off like any other. I felt good and determined to be at the front and push my self that little bit more. I had plenty of aggression to get out from the previous week at work. I showed up and there was a very disappointing showing of the Titletown crew. I believe there were only six of us that showed and the rest were others from the newvelo site. Before we headed out I tried to warn the others that extra layers would not be needed, some listened.

So we rolled out with a nice easy pace, I was itching to get going with an unusual amount of energy. We got to the hills at thornberry and our field began to show how we would split up. We regouped and decided to let the faster group go, which included myself, Shawn, and Mark. It didn't take long for me to figure out that our group meant business. We had a paceline going for a good 15 miles cruising at about 22mph. It was fun and gave me something to think about along the way. The first time I attacked no one followed, I don't know why? I hadn't really intended for anyone to follow anyway,just a little Wenzlick flyer to keep my energy in control. The second time I attacked was with a tail wind. We had just turned onto a new road and the tail wind felt awsome. I cruised at 25 for a little while with no effort, and then the numbers began to climb. I started to push past 30, passing the main group and then I started to push. I was going at around 34mph and could sense no one was behind ,but I looked and there they all were stuck to my draft. Three of them passed me as I started to lose energy, and I tried with all my might to hitch on. So that went on for a couple miles maybe two or three, and it was probably the most fun couple miles I ever had on a road bike.

On the way back toward thornberry we were doing about 22 and I started to die. Shawn and I were trying to hang onto the back of the group and I barely did. Overall for me it was one of the most enjoyable rides I have done. I don't know what happened with me this year, but I feel a lot stronger. We'll just have to see if I can translate the Road to the Mountain.

Other notes, went to Shawn's place for a little while to celebrate the big forty. There were no black balloons to be seen and rightly so. All of the finely aged fellas on our team are a big example of how I want to be when I'm just a little bit older. I hope I can keep it up!
I spent around 10 hours working on the car over the weekend and it's alive! Rain severly hampered our testing plans, but hopfully this wednesday night we'll be able to run it more.

Electrathon Car Body

Pepe A friend of Russ, my welding instructor donated the material and helped cover our car body on Tuesday. Pepe is a surgeon and one of his hobbies is building airplanes, so he donated the same stuff you use to cover airframes with, for our body. The fabric is called Dacron, it's super light and strong and shrinks when heat is applied. It doesn't look like much now, but the current paint plan is a dark silver base coat with metalic orange stripes going down the sides and up the middle.
The first drive of the car is this sunday, so prey for the rain to stay away till monday please. I've had a super busy week with work and it's been super hard to get to the school to do the wiring that I've voluteered to do. I have to go in on saturday after a partial team ride(try to get 25miles in ).

New Wheels

I got my new Crank Brothers Cobalt Wheels on my bike last night and they look awesome. Istalled the new S-works slk tires (with tubes for now) and my old rotors. Took it out for a little test ride after I put them on. Of course they feel a lot faster (because I spent money and they're shiny), but really they do feel like they roll faster. I can't wait to try them on the trail. Now I need to get a blue water bottle cage to complete the look.

Couple new faces on the ride and great weather

Had another great turnout today. probably started with around twelve or so in the parking lot. I was not feeling in top form today so I was toward the back of the group today. I know that we did catch one or two other groups along the way, so probably had about the same number as last week. We evan had a couple new guys that saw our ride out on the newvelo site. Our group split ways again doing probably 25, 35, and more.

We did have one little incident that luckily resulted in no bodily harm. We had a sudden turn and Matt Lanser got hooked together to another bike while braking. Matt had a broken spoke but could ride on without any trouble. Really no ones fault, the turn came up fast and no one in the back was prepared.

After the bike ride I got a call from a buddy Mark to go out on the motorcycle. We met up at the train museum and proceeded to leave. However Marks bike died as we were about to pull away. His car was just a block or so away, so we jumped it. We then proceeded out to thornberry to open the throttle a little. We got up to FF and again the bike dies. So I haul ass back to my house to get the jeep, jump him and follow him back. Not the greatest ride, but at least we tried.

Nice weekend of riding

Yesterday we had one of the biggest turnouts for spring training that I had ever been apart of. 18 brave souls hit the road in the balmy 35degree temps in the beginning and ending around mid 40's.
It sounds like there was a nice selection of lengths with a 30, 40, and 60 mile routes. I did the 30 miles and it felt good after 12 days off the bike.
After the ride, I immediately got in the shower and went to NWTC to see what had been done with the Electrathon car. We added a front bumper of sorts as a support for the body and a crumple zone. Also a new place for the battery was added. This year we're going with Lithium Polymer batteries as apposed to our lead acid car batteries. The batteries are our "party trick" for the year. Last year the two car batteries weighed in at 67lbs, the LIPO battery weighs 12lbs. Some of the electrical changes are at the edge of there capabilities, so I'm hoping that we don't toast anything. The batteries are $1300 a piece so I hope that they work.
Today, I woke up didn't see any snow, went down to look at the temp (35) looks good to me. Went out to Henisrah and three other of the boys showed up for a MTB ride. This was the first time on the MTB seriously since Iceman. We toured around for a couple of loops and I called it quites after three(feet were frozen). It started to snow pretty good at about 9:30, it made me feel even better seeing it.